Brainstorm with HN: Let's fix ridiculously expensive education | Hacker News Reader

Brainstorm with HN: Let's fix ridiculously expensive education

12 pointsrobinh12 comments

(I'm not sure whether this 'Brainstorm with HN' will work as a good format for discussion within the HN community, but I think it fits the subject here.)

Hi HN,

I've been thinking about the problems with education, and what we (hackers, entrepreneurs, you name it) can do about it. I'm going to focus on education on the university level, mainly because that's what people are talking so much about nowadays.

What I think is that at the university level, it's not so much the actual learning that we have to improve: it's grading. People can learn by themselves (many have been doing just that for a long time), and while there's certainly room for improvement, this isn't the part about universities I think needs replacing. Grading, or getting a degree, on the other hand, is a much more significant problem: employers want to know that you've learned something; when going through a thousand CVs, they don't want to have to extensively test every potential employee to see whether they really know what they claim to know. Thus, degrees.

Of course, there have been some great improvements here. Coursera, for example, have made the big university courses more accessible for all. But I don't doubt better things are yet to come, so let's discuss those: what do you think is the largest thing that needs serious improvement in education? What, if anything, do you miss from these projects such as Coursera? What are your ideas to make (online) education even better?

Discuss. :)

what do you think is the largest thing that needs serious improvement in education?

Being aware of what is possible. Most people, by my observation of online discussions, think their own education was pretty good, and it's the "other guy" who might possibly have a poor education. But it just might be (as I think, after living in more than one country) that a great many people, perhaps including me, have plenty more to learn that they COULD learn. Maybe the current system is underpeforming more than we imagine, and more than we CAN imagine after receiving the schooling we each received.

It's eerie that you posted this just a few minutes before I posted this: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4856307

One thing that I think is missing from both online education and education at the university is personalization. At UCLA, I sat in lecture halls with hundreds of students, and we all got the same words. It would be nice to sign up for the lecture from the professor who makes movie analogies instead of sports analogies. Or maybe I prefer a professor who writes on the board instead of using a powerpoint.

As a Kaplan instructor (SAT, GRE, GMAT, LSAT), I would explain a question differently depending on the student. Was this a student who had pacing problems? I might emphasize elimination strategies or guessing intelligently. Was it a student who consistently fell for trap answers? I'd advise them to try to think like the test maker and anticipate the traps. The best part about online classes is that you can capture this data pretty easily. But so far, no one is using it to deliver a more personal online learning experience.

There's no doubt that there is a lot wrong with education in general but there's also a lot of great things about it too. The value of bringing together a large number of young, intelligent people with all kinds of interests is incredible.

In terms of what's wrong and suggestions for improvement, it's hard to know where to start. One big, doable change may just be more standardized testing. The price of education is simply a reflection of the fact that employers and students overvalue degrees. This leads to this perverse effect that causes people to enroll because they feel like they have to, not because they want to. The whole dynamic just seems to create an enormous amount of problems. Tying so much economic value to a college degree drives prices and attendance up and the effectiveness and true value of education down.

I think what you mean is credentialling, not "grading". Education and credentials only loosely overlap. My understanding of history is that this credentials vs education thing is a long standing problem. I don't foresee it ever really being resolved.

I would love to use the Internet as a means to educate people. I am still trying to figure out how. Among other things, I would like to create a simulation (aka "game"). That's a longstanding dream. I have done things like start a design doc, but sometimes it seems like the dreams I have are impossible dreams.

Effectively reaching your target audience is the big challenge. I think it only gets bigger with the Internet because of the huge diversity of people online.

I think there should be a clear distinction between learning for getting a job and learning to enhance your knowledge.

And neither should cost upwards of $40,000 per year

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